Fourth Perspective - Chapter 28

In the middle of the night, the lone wind whistled and blew on the doors and windows, making a knocking sound as it hit the glass. The cold poured into the building through the unsealed gaps in the doors and windows.

The young police officer stood up and walked to the window to close the curtains.

“Is someone knocking on the door?”

Police officer Wu Yuan turned his head and looked at his phone on the table.

The desks in the dorm were all simply-designed and Wu Yuan had placed a rack in the middle of the table to support the phone.

He was video calling his girlfriend.

On the bright fluorescent screen was a girl with short hair and a round face.

Wu Yuan glanced towards the desk and smiled: “No, it’s just the wind that’s too big. I pulled the curtains shut.”

The round-faced girl smiled: “The days are getting colder, I’ll get you some window sealing tape, come to your dorm this weekend and we’ll seal the windows together.”

“Ok!”

“Wu Yuan…” The girl trailed off.

The clean-shaved policeman quickly responded: “En?”

“Urgent question, when will we go see the wedding dress next month!”

“The eighth! There’s still eighteen days.”

A girl’s shy laugh came from the phone.

The cold winter wind seemed to be unable to blow into this simple room, the girl was stunned into shy silence and the boy talked nervously and happily.

After a while.

“Eh, is it the window again? The banging.”

The young policeman slightly stilled and after a moment: “I’ll go open the door.”

He walked to the door.

The round-faced girl approached her phone in curiosity and she vaguely saw her boyfriend walk into the living room and open the door.

In the blurry video, Wu Yuan’s body blocked the person outside the door and the round-faced girl only saw part of the person outside, who was in a police uniform. After watching for a while, she looked down and did her own thing, bored, and waited for her boyfriend to come back.

This time, Wu Yuan came back quickly.

“Ruru, something urgent just came up… I’ll be back soon!”

The girl froze for a second, before smiling and nodding: “Okay!”

***

The Second Hospital of Zhongdu University.

A few of the doctors and nurses who had previously been evacuated due to the emergency evacuation were called back. The officials told them multiple times that the evacuation had nothing to do with a radiation leak and so several experienced doctors and nurses returned to the hospital nervously and began a full-body examination for a young police officer.

An hour later, Zhongdu City’s User Committee received Wu Yuan’s report.

“There are no problems.”

Captain Wang Tao put down the thick report but his expression became even more serious.

A report that said there were no problems, he had seen one just like it two hours ago. That girl’s body had long turned cold and was now lying alone in the examination room at the moment. The white cloth covered her pale face and her family still didn’t know that their daughter, wife, or stepmother had died as the government had blocked the news of Chu Wenting’s death.

They had to first find who was killing people everywhere with their logic skill.

No one knew just how many people were caught up in this head-picking logic skill and no one could bear the consequences once the murderer senses that their actions were exposed.

Wu Yuan was confused when he entered the hospital, not knowing what was happening.

But when he walked into the examination room, he saw his senior, Officer Wang. Finding someone he knew in a strange and unknown environment, Wu Yuan’s heart, which was hanging in mid-air, was slightly fixed. He immediately asked Officer Wang if he knew what was happening but Officer Wang only smiled bitterly, shaking his head, and just asked him to do a check-up.

After doing an extremely detailed full body examination, Wu Yuan looked at his healthy report and was relieved.

However, as soon as he turned around, he saw Officer Wang’s solemn face.

The young police officer froze.

“…Brother Wang, what’s going on?”

Officer Wang couldn’t answer.

With a clatter, Wu Yuan’s heart fell into an icy space.

At the same time on the other side.

Everyone had seen Wu Yuan’s report.

In fact, when Captain Wang sent someone to pick up Wu Yuan for an examination at the hospital, everyone had already guessed that the examination report would be meaningless.

Before Chu Wenting died, she also did such an examination but there weren’t any problems. If she hadn’t personally lifted her own head off, then the several users on the scene wouldn’t have been sure if the abnormality was related to a logic skill and instead might have just been a strange sickness.

Moreover, the fact that Chu Wenting could take off her own head was strange in itself.

During the period in which Xiao Jinyu and Su Jiuzhou headed to go kill a polluter, Captain Wang had tried to split off Chu Wenting’s head once.

Wang Tao’s expression was extremely complicated: “I failed. Although I’m not as strong as Water Punishment, I am still a level five user, ranking A23. My strength is about two tons. If I can’t pull open Chu Wenting’s neck, then that indicates that the force between the fissure is greater than two tons. The specific force can be measured by the Logic Research Institute.” After a pause, he continued: “But a fissure that even I couldn’t pull open was easily lifted by this young girl…”

The sudden appearance of another victim stopped Xiao Jinyu and Su Jiuzhou from going out and hunting a pollutant.

At this moment, in addition to Qi Simin who had already left, and Officer Wang who was accompanying Officer Wu in the examination room next door, the other three people who had witnessed Chu Wenting’s death by picking her own head off, were all gathered in a lounge in the hospital.

What Wang Tao said was exactly what Xiao Jinyu had been thinking since the beginning.

When Chu Wenting plucked her head off, no one thought that there would be an accident because of two reasons. First, how can a human being pluck their own head off? Second, even if Chu Wenting was like Meat King, she was just an ordinary person, so she didn’t have a lot of strength, letting her pull her own head off.

The fissure on Meat King’s neck was something that normal users weren’t able to pull open, let alone an ordinary person.

But Chu Wenting did it.

At first, Xiao Jinyu had guessed that this was the core difference between Chu Wenting and Meat King.

Perhaps it was because Meat King was a user, so pulling apart his neck was hard. Chu Wenting wasn’t a user so she didn’t need to use a lot of strength.

However, he quickly rejected this guess.

This clearly was a groundless answer.

Not to mention that after Chu Wenting’s death, Wang Tao wasn’t able to pull apart her neck. And even if Wang Tao hadn’t tried, Chu Wenting’s neck couldn’t have been so easily lifted by herself. If her head could be plucked off by herself so easily, then in her daily life, if she had just lowered her head slightly, then her head would fall off.

So there was only one explanation.

Xiao Jinyu: “Perhaps there are two ways to open this fissure.”

Subconsciously raising his fingers, Xiao Jinyu rubbed his lower lip as he analyzed: “First is that it takes a lot of strength to pull it open. For example, strength like Water Punishment’s. When I was in Haidu City, the grey-haired captain told me that when she pulled apart the neck of Meat King, she had spent a lot of strength to pull open the fissure and that she felt the crack constantly trying to close.”

Wang Tao nodded: “The force of the fissure is close to Water Punishment’s strength.”

Xiao Jinyu suddenly had a thought: “Does this mean that the person behind this logic skill might have a strength and a ranking close to or equal to Water Punishment’s?”

Wang Tao agreed: “It’s very likely. Such a strong force forced Water Punishment to use her full strength. If this user’s ranking is lower, it won’t be that much lower.”

But before the two could be happy for just a few seconds, Su Jiuzhou suddenly said: “This person doesn’t exist.”

Xiao Jinyu froze and turned around to look at the man next to him.

“Water Punishment’s ranking is A14. From A10 to A30, there are no logic skills that have ‘neck’ as a precursor.” After a pause, he found Xiao Jinyu looking at him and Su Jiuzhou smiled: “I’m very sure.”

Xiao Jinyu suddenly wanted to ask, how can you be absolutely sure that there were no forks on these logic skills that could be related to the neck?

To be able to reach A30, they must be at least level five.

The level five promotion criteria was: successfully change the result of their logic skill.

Change the cause at level four and change the result at level five.

From A10 to A30, there were twenty logic skills whose causes and results had been changed. Are you sure that you’re clear on each of them?

Would other people tell you about their logic skills so unreservedly?

Xiao Jinyu didn’t ask and only quietly glanced at Wang Tao.

This Captain of Zhongdu City’s Extermination Team didn’t doubt Su Jiuzhou’s words. He conceded that if Su Jiuzhou said that from A10 to A30, there were no logic skills that were related to the neck, then he was definitely correct.

Xiao Jinyu bowed his head, covering his thoughtful expression.

—He had guessed a part of Spear of Judgment’s logic skill.

004 said that when Spear of Judgment was at level one, it gave him the description of “a spear that cuts through impurities”. And now Xiao Jinyu was sure that on this level six user’s logic skill, there was a fork that was related to seeing other peoples’ logic skills.

…This logic skill seemed to be somewhat similar to his.

A strange feeling flashed through his heart, but there wasn’t a trace of expression on the youth’s face. At this moment in time, he shouldn’t know who Spear of Judgment is nor that Su Jiuzhou was a level six user. What he now had to do was to meet the standard of a newly awakened user. The only thing that made him more useful than Qi Simin was that he could see logic factors.

Su Jiuzhou suddenly asked: “What about the second way to pull open the neck?”

Xiao Jinyu looked up.

Su Jiuzhou smiled at him.

After a moment, Xiao Jinyu: “I think the second way doesn’t need a lot of strength to do. As long as the owner of the neck wants to pull apart their neck, then they can do so without spending a lot of strength. This wasn’t forcing the neck apart but an act that conforms to the logic skill and may also be a condition of the logic skill.”

After he said that, there was a moment of silence in the room.

Wang Tao repeated on reflex: “Behavior that conforms to the logic skill…”

But Su Jiuzhou squinted his eyes and suddenly said: “Xiao Jinyu.”

“En?” He answered automatically, his attention returning.

After a moment of silence, he whispered: “Is there anything wrong, Colonel Su?”

Su Jiuzhou’s deep eyes were silently fixed on him and he didn’t open his mouth for a long time. Just when Xiao Jinyu was about to ask again, Su Jiuzhou smiled, his tone casual while his eyes were extremely serious: “You should really reflect on why you weren’t promoted from level one to level two in one day.”

Xiao Jinyu froze.

“Perhaps you mistook your logic skill from the start.

“Xiao Jinyu…

“Keep thinking.”

***

Keep thinking.

This sentence was the fifth article in “Grow Some Brains APP’s Must-Read Guide for Beginners”.

This was also the second time Su Jiuzhou had said to him: Keep thinking.

After saying this, Su Jiuzhou left the hospital. He whispered a few words to Wang Tao and Captain Wang nodded repeatedly.

Once he left, Wang Tao said: “Colonel Su remembered that he had something else to do first. Xiao Jinyu, your logic skill is very useful and Colonel Su asked me to get a pollutant’s body from the Logic Research Institute for you to look at. It should be here in about half an hour.”

Xiao Jinyu: “…”

So he doesn’t plan to kill a pollutant now and instead is just going to take a pollutant’s corpse, letting him see if he could find those black logic factors on it?

Before Su Jiuzhou left, he asked Wang Tao to find a pollutant’s body and let Xiao Jinyu look at it. But he didn’t tell him it was to let Xiao Jinyu determine what the black logic factors were.

He didn’t reveal Xiao Jinyu’s logic skill.

After reading the examination report, the next thing they could do was to personally go to the scene and ask the policeman, Xiao Wu.

For a logic skill to work on a person, there must be a prerequisite, that is, the cause.

If Wu Yuan really entered this logic skill, then he must have done something similar to Chu Wenting, completing the same ‘cause’.

Meat King was an outlier.

Right now, no one could think about what Meat King, who was far away in Haidu City, had in common with Chu Wenting and Wu Yuan. But the similarities between Chu Wenting and Wu Yuan are much easier to find, especially as one of the parties was still alive.

Xiao Jinyu and Wang Tao walked to the Third Examination room at the end of the corridor.

Captain Wang walked on the tile flooring step by step, his burly body causing him to make a thudding sound. As he walked, he said: “I didn’t think that there were two ways for the neck to break. I had only thought of the victim pulling their head off. But Xiao Jinyu, ‘the victim pulling their head off is an act that conforms to the logic skill’ was something I didn’t think of.”

Hearing this, Xiao Jinyu looked at Wang Tao.

The robust man looked ahead: “As for how this logic skill kills people, I had also thought about. Chu Wenting had already entered that logic skill, yet she didn’t die for a long time. As for what caused her sudden death, there are two possibilities. First was her action of pulling her head off; Second, after she pulled her head off, she realized she was dead, so she died. Of these two possibilities, we cannot determine which is the real one for the time being.”

Xiao Jinyu: “I also thought of those two causes of death.”

Chu Wenting really died.

But as for which action led to her death, needed to be dug into.

Whether it was the simple act of pulling her head off or the realization that her neck was broken after she pulled her head off, neither Xiao Jinyu nor Wang Tao could answer.

Perhaps even Chu Wenting herself didn’t know the answer.

Looking at the shorter youth, the two meter tall Captain Wang looked away: “In a sense, I’m not a user that is good at thinking. I almost couldn’t get promoted from level three to four and only through an accident did I advance. I think that Colonel Su’s words just now were right. Xiao Jinyu, you’re very smart and you can deduce carefully. And with your thinking ability, you should be able to advance in one day.”

Xiao Jinyu was quiet for a while.

“…Thank you.”

Wang Tao was taciturn and only replied with an “En”.

Perhaps Fourth Perspective’s ability wasn’t to see logic skills, but also allowed him to use other people’s logic factors for his own use?

Xiao Jinyu lowered his head, thinking.

Suddenly, his pockets vibrated.

He took out his phone.

[Dad! Yingyingying!!!]

Xiao Jinyu was shocked and then looked up at Wang Tao, who was walking in front of him.

Not saying anything, Xiao Jinyu opened the notes app and typed on his phone.

(Su Jiuzhou just left, are you not afraid of being found out?)

In a situation where he couldn’t talk, Xiao Jinyu didn’t know if 004 could see the words he typed on his screen, so he could only try.

But soon 004 responded.

[Old Pervert has already gone far, so it’s fine.]

[Dad, Old Pervert hit me today!]

[He hit me!!!]

Xiao Jinyu: “…”

It’s not the first or second time he’s hit you, so just bear with it.

[Eh, why is the guy who locked me up in front of you? Dad, hit him!]

Xiao Jinyu: “…”

Between fighting Su Jiuzhou and Wang Tao, the result may be the same and the time it takes might not be that different too.

Xiao Jinyu didn’t respond.

After a while.

(Do you know what my logic skill is?)

[Seeing logic factors… What happened, dad?]

(Did you know that I can use White Garden’s logic factors?)

[Didn’t know (⊙v⊙)]

[I’m only a small special object. Although I’m very powerful, I can only detect the general idea of a user’s logic skill. And for what the specific logic skill is, I’ve always asked users to think for themselves.]

[It turns out that dad was this powerful, even able to use other people’s logic skills.]

[Worthy of being my dad, muah]

With no time to respond to the screen full of ‘muah’s, Xiao Jinyu looked down and thought.

(Did you know that users can promote from level one to two in one day, after awakening?)

[That… I definitely know!]

Hm?

[There’s a lot. Which one are you looking for, Dad? Let me count.]

Wait, a lot?

[All existing users that are level five and above were promoted to level two on the first day of awakening. There are also a lot of high-potential level three and four users.]

[Oh yeah, Dad, this stinky guy next to you isn’t one of them. He’s very stupid and must have taken a long time to promote, I don’t even remember who he is. He’s the only idiot in level five.]

He looked up at the robust and reassuring back of Captain Wang.

Xiao Jinyu: “…”

Xiao Jinyu would have never thought that so many people would promote in just one day. He had thought that it was a very difficult thing to do and had even thought that Su Jiuzhou was mocking him…

But thinking about it now, the other party probably wasn’t mocking him and was just stating something a slightly smarter person would have been able to do.

…

[Dad.]

(Hm?)

[Old Pervert seems to want to be my new dad.]

His footsteps suddenly stopped and Xiao Jinyu looked at the bullet comment floating on the middle of the screen, freezing in place.

Captain Wang, who was walking in front, also stopped. He looked back and asked: “Xiao Jinyu?”

Putting his phone back into his pocket and before Xiao Jinyu could open his mouth, his eyes stopped. He looked behind Captain Wang and following his gaze, Captain Wang also turned around and looked.

Under the bright and dazzling light, they saw a young police officer walk towards them. Behind him was Officer Wang who had a complicated expression.

“Experts!” Wu Yuan recognized Xiao Jinyu and took Captain Wang as his colleague.

The ordinary-looking but enthusiastic little police officer had a solemn face as if he had made some important decision. He took a deep breath, looked at Xiao Jinyu, and said: “Expert, I’ve heard about the situation from Brother Wang already. Xiao Kexin’s stepmother, Chu Wenting, is already dead, right?!”

Xiao Jinyu and Captain Wang both froze,

Xiao Jinyu looked at Officer Wang.

Officer Wang smiled bitterly: “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hide it. Xiao Wu guessed that something happened and wanted a definite answer. He guessed himself that the matter was related to Miss Chu.”

Since the other party already knew, Captain Wang thought about it and didn’t hide it anymore.

Wu Yuan: “Brother Wang said that Miss Chu died from picking her head off. I know that you brought me here because you suspect that I am like her, contracted this strange illness. Right now, I want to know, this illness… is it contagious? Was I infected by Miss Chu?”

Captain Wang suddenly understood the meaning of this young police officer’s words. He wanted to know if he was infected by Miss Chu.

“No. This illness is definitely not contagious between people, you were not infected by Miss Chu. The both of you are victims.”

Chu Wenting was long dead, she was also a victim, so she was clearly not an accomplice.

Not even mentioning the fact that she wasn’t a pollutant, even if she had been drawn into an out-of-control logic skill and became a pollutant, pollutants weren’t infectious.

Wu Yuan and Chu Wenting were both affected by a certain logic skill or polluter.

Wang Tao: “You only wanted to ask this? Now that you know the answer, it’s time for us to ask questions.”

Wu Yuan: “This disease isn’t contagious between people, but people are infected in some way, right?”

This metaphor… cannot be said to be wrong.

Wang Tao: “From a certain standpoint, it is similar.”

“So that means outside of this hospital, there are possibly more people who, like Chu Wenting, are infected with this illness?”

Wang Tao’s face sank.

This was also the biggest concern of the Zhongdu City’s User Committee right now.

They couldn’t find out just how many victims there were because they had no way of detecting this logic skill at all! Its logic factor was hidden in the fissure of the victim’s neck and unless they pulled the fissure apart, they couldn’t find it. But if they pull it apart, the victim will die.

Looking at Xiao Jinyu’s and Wang Tao’s hesitant reactions, Wu Yuan got the answer he wanted.

Nails sinking deep into the flesh, in just a few seconds, the young policeman underwent great psychological pressure. He opened his mouth: “Brother Wang said Miss Chu died because she pulled her own head off. Before that Miss Chu didn’t exhibit any unusual behaviors.

“Brother Wang and I analyzed a bit in the examination room. Miss Chu didn’t die before she pulled her head off and only died afterward. But her head later returned to its original place. Has the forensic doctor checked the specific cause of Miss Chu’s death? Was it because of her head separating?”

Wang Tao shook his head: “It’s not.”

When Wu Yuan was undergoing his full body examination, the forensic doctor performed an autopsy on Chu Wenting’s corpse.

The autopsy’s results seemed unexpected, but it was logical.

Chu Wenting died of a system organ failure.

All the organs in her body stopped working at the same time as if it all gained self-awareness. Her heart stopped beating, her lungs stopped breathing, and every blood vessel stopped transporting blood.

This was what caused her death.

Chu Wenting’s head was returned to her neck and not a single fissure could be seen with the naked eye. A person whose head was removed didn’t die from their head being removed. This conclusion was absurd and strange, yet it was also reasonable.

Just like how no one would die by lifting their own head off with their own hands.

“Experts, if there is a need to, I’m willing to undergo any experiment. I can be like Miss Chu and lift my head off with both of my hands! Only as long as you can find the way of infection and solve this strange illness.”

Xiao Jinyu froze and looked at the young person in front of him.

Wang Tao also looked at him in shock.

Wu Yuan’s expression was serious, his eyes sincere.

—He wasn’t joking.

***

Meanwhile.

Haidu City’s Subway Station.

In the empty and dark square in front of the station, a tall and thin, clean-shaven, young man wrapped in a blue trench coat walked against the fierce wind from the Huangpu River, towards the closed gates of the station.

Xu Qi’s trench coat was buttoned tightly yet his abdomen was bulging.

He put the documents and videos relating to Meat King’s case into the file and his trenchcoat hid the pearl necklace.

After Wind Blowing Fart, Zhang Haixiang was arrested, the pearl necklace that killed Meat King was taken away by Su Jiuzhou. But within a day, Colonel Su returned it to Haidu City’s Logic Research Institute and bluntly said: “Find out how it kills. Its original effect of changing a logic skill’s cause is light and can be neglected.”

Xu Qi never thought that Meat King’s case would be related to Zhongdu City.

Before going to Zhongdu City, Xu Qi deliberately went to the Logic Research Institute to visit his former captain, Luo Sheng, and told her about the head-picking incident in Zhongdu City.

There was always a place in Luo Sheng’s room that was wet.

The water vapor in the air was constantly being refined by Water Punishment, falling to the floor like it was a silent rain.

Luo Sheng said that Meat King went to a lot of cities in the country and even went to America.

But he had never gone to Zhongdu City.

This point, Luo Sheng was sure.

How can a user that had never been to Zhongdu City be related to a logic skill event in Zhongdu City?

Xu Qi didn’t understand, but all he could do was to take all the information they could use and rush to Zhongdu. Originally, he had to take the train the next day, but Luo Sheng directly let him go to the accounts of HaiRongJi Group, spending tens of millions of yuan to open a train to send him to Zhongdu City.

“Dong—”

The small door of the Haidu Subway Station was quietly opened and just as he was about to step into the train station, a bell sounded.

Xu Qi stopped and looked into the distance.

It was a tall clock tower, its architectural style from the Baroque period. It just so happened to be three in the morning and the huge brass pendulum swayed gently in the air. Even after a hundred years, it was still sticking to its post and accurately telling the time.

Xu Qi froze for a moment and recalled the history knowledge he had barely remembered and passed when he was in school.

“This clock tower seems to have been built in the last century. Before, whenever I was passing by in the day, I didn’t pay much attention to it.”

During the day, people come and go. Haidu Station was located in the bustling Puxi District and every time Xu Qi came, he wouldn’t look at such a small clock tower. If it weren’t for it being in the middle of the night when he came to this area and hearing it ring, he wouldn’t have noticed this clock tower that had been silently standing there for over a hundred years.

“Is Mr. Xu not coming?”

Xu Qi no longer looked at the clock tower and hurried into the station: “Coming.”

While checking if there were any prohibited items on him, the staff member laughed and said: “This Haidu Subway Station has been built for many decades and you’re the first passenger to add a train. You’re the only one on the train this evening.”

Xu Qi laughed dryly: “Really? Ha ha…”

It was true that normal people wouldn’t spend tens of millions just to get to another city a few hours earlier.

“Ah right, I seem to have seen that clock tower in textbooks before, is it famous?”

The worker thought for a moment: “It seems to be. That clock tower is in a Catholic church two streets to the east. I don’t remember when it was built. But I heard that when the church was built, a lot of money was spent. Last century, this Puxi District belonged to the French Concession, it seems like it was built by a rich foreign businessman…”

Xu Qi casually replied with an “oh”.